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New PC - advice needed

Hi,

I'm thinking about buying a new PC (my current one is getting on a bit and things keep failing - PSU, CD drive and graphics card so far).

My budget is £400-ish max, and I'd like to play the odd game - not fussed about other high-end apps such as video editing etc.

Any ideas, or is my budget too small? I'd prefer to have an OS included, although I think I get a discount on Win7.

Don't need keybard, mouse, monitor etc, just the base unit.

Thanks Andy
 
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shouldnt be too hard to build a entry level system for £400

firstly lets go through useable parts..

what memory do you currently use (DDR2 can be ported over to a new board, DDR3 from what l remember is still a lil pricey.. tho l havent looked recently)

if you recently replaced your power supply, how powerful is it?

CD/DVD drive, if its still going strong shouldnt need to replace it, same with hard drives unless you want a new one to install to so you can save yourself backing up data on your current OS drive (that being said are they SATA or PATA aka IDE? SATA is allot easier to work with these days as boards seem to be built more for SATA these days)

ideally tho depending on your hardware, if its not totally outdated you maybe able to salvage parts meaning the likely replacements would only be CPU, motherboard, and GFX which l can see costing under £200 depending on how far you want to take your system like quad core processors and more mainstream gamer GFX cards, equally ld expect if you went intel processors may cost a little more than ld be willing to pay as lm basing my estimations on AMD chips (as lve always been an ADM fan, never owned a system with an intel in it)

regardless, please list the possibly usable hardware such as your current ram, power supply, any drives (and their connectability SATA/PATA?) working from what is usable will provide a good estimate as to how far you can take your upgrade since you have a general price range, maybe you can expand upon what you have with something a little faster than you originally would have chosen on a complete upgrade (still l prolly dont have to say it but even your case should be usable)

as for the ebay links, yeah you can get some interesting stuff there.. but ld much rather have stuff from a place like ebuyer.com, your less likely to be ripped off and end up with broken stuff after transit..

still food for thought, considering what you currently have as possibilities because if some hardware can be used, you can expand upon what you currently have with something better to compliment it (kinda like l did, tho part of the reason was motherboard failure l pretty much jumped from a 1ghz dual core to a 3ghz dual core, and since ram was usable and l only needed a board, l got everything done for under £200 including new PSU, tho lm not counting my new case in that estimate tho it was high-street prices in this case)
 
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Well you can count that 'AMD PHENOM™ QUAD CORE 4GB 1000GB NVIDIA® GEFORCE™ DVDRW' (3rd link) one out right away because a 256MB Geforce 7 graphics card is practically ancient in technology terms :) .

It's a tougher call between the others and they all sort of level out, though the INTEL E5300 based system might just edge it for gaming thanks to the 9800GT graphics card. The other two have 9500's but faster CPU's, though CPU power isn't quite enough to make up the 9500 vs 9800 gap but it will improve all the other areas.

Definitely don't get Windows Vista for an OS though, Win7 is a million miles better.
 
Right, I just opened up my PC to take a look at whats in it. The short version is that it has marginally less power than a modern desk calculator.

  • Compaq SR1130UK (with a couple of upgrades)
  • Pentium 4 2.8GHz
  • 1GB RAM (2x512mb PC3200 DDR)
  • GeForce 6200A
  • 250w PSU (ripped from a similar PC when the last one died)
  • A DVD re-writer (probably the only part that can be re-used)
  • 2 x IDE HDD's
  • Integrated sound card

I've had it for getting on for 5 years, and since it was bought as a refurb it wasn't brand new then.

Ignore what I said about getting cheap Windows - I can only get Win7 Pro for about £200, or Ultimate (didn't even bother checking the price)

In terms of gaming, I'm not talking about the heavy-duty 3D shoot-em-ups etc (got an Xbox 360 for that) but more like Command & Conquer etc.

Timeless - I take your point about eBay, but they at least have decent feedback. TBH I just want to get the best PC I can for what I can afford.
 
going by what you have said, its likely to hit your upper estimate...

especially considering by the looks of it you desperately need a new power supply, to be honest.. it could be part of some of your issues, l wouldnt even consider anything lower than a 500W one, even 5years ago my system had at least a 500W in it..

still if your still interested in the possibility of a rebuild let me know, especially if your on skype as there are a couple of aspects l wanna verify.
 
I appreciate the offer Timeless, but I think I'm going to leave it until I have a bit more cash - I have a laptop I can use if needs be so it's not desperate if my desktop does die.
 
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no probs, feel free to contact me tho if you wanna talk about things.. will be nice to get the chance to talk hardware with someone lol, havent been able to do much computer talking recently with ppl who have an interest XD
 
that last link looks pretty nice, tho l hope it comes with a better heatsink, by the looks of it its from the line of lower powered chips (by lower powered l mean lower power consumption) and if you use the stock heatsink and its the same one l used to have its pretty crap, just a hunk of metal that doesnt quite cover the CPU.. was total crap, that coupled with the word overclocked kinda puts me off unless you have a reasonable cooler.. tho lve not liked overclocking purely because your forcing the chip to do a little more than it was designed to do therefore lowering the lifetime of the system.

also by the looks of the board specs you would only be able to fit 2 IDE devices in, meaning (if lm under the correct assumption) he would have to get an external caddy if he still uses a PATA based CD/DVD drive/burner.. equally my system doesnt use the IDE slots much prefer SATA anyways, tho imho l would replace PATA devices with SATA anyways, tho it would work out ok if the burner was replaced giving you a little better transfer when burning especially if he expanded drives and had SATA ones as well.

other than that, it doesnt look too bad a bundle as long as he has a good case with excellent airflow and a higher powered power supply would be a must with this bundle (l wouldnt put anything less than a 6/700W in)
 
Erm...just got a bill for £3000 to replace our boiler that just died. A new PC is not going to happen anytime soon now!

Many thanks for the suggestions though.

Andy
 
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thats ruddy typical, murphys law at its worst ld say...

l hope you manage to sort the problem tho its sad to see so much money go for anyone without a thick wallet.
 
British Gas replaced mine last summer. With discounts I got it down to £2,100. Four months pension. Ouch!
 
WHAT!! You can buy a whole central heating system for that!!
 
might be worth shopping around and getting someone else to value it... still in my case lm the kinda person who doesnt really like centeral heating XD regardless of the time of the year l dont tend to use heating for more than baths.. when l lived on my own l never paid more than about a £15 a year on the meter, it covered all the baths l took yet next door was spending £20 or more a month with heating full blast at all times.

then again lm warm blooded, as long as lm not freezing lm happy.. one thing lm not looking forward to is summer.. never liked it as lm the type who tends to feel like death warmed up if a place is too hot.
 
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WHAT!! You can buy a whole central heating system for that!!

You might buy a very small, cheap quality central heating sytem for £3,000, but the price would nearly DOUBLE when the installation cost is added in.

I had new central heating installed in June 2005. It comprised of a (then) state-of-the-art SEDBUK "A" Rated Worcester-Bosch condensing combi-boiler (£1,500), ten radiators, one towel rail, electronic controls & radiator thermostats, plus a mixture of plastic & copper pipework (£1,800). Installation (nothing to take out) to an ex-council "Airey" house with a solid concrete ground floor & a timber first floor supported on STEEL joists,; cost about £3,000. The total cost was £6,300 in 2005; that was a very competitive quote from a small local company. The highest quote I had was for £8,000.
 
Kansenji, I have two words for you.

POETIC LICENCE
 
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